Muse ideas and general strategy, critique and advice please

[Feenz]

Hi

Just finished the book, and absolutely loved it.

I have been looking for solid, realistic ways to make gradual, incremental income online, and this makes it all look realistic to me.

I have a good site infrastructure set up, to allow multiple landing pages for the same product (with different copy depending on exactly what was searched for). I've been studying the superb workshops on www.marketingexperiments.com and am looking to attempt to launch my first muse.

The things I would like critque / advice / opinons - from those who are doing this successfully, or have hit pitfalls I may encounter - on are :

1) After spending ages trying to think of the absolute ideal, best muse, I decided that I was over thinking it, and that it would be better to just get SOMETHING running, and practice / play / refine. Is this "just get on with it" approach the best way to go, or is it wiser to REALLY consider what the muse is more carefully?

2) I am taking the approach that I will need LOTS of muses, with a view to earning small monthly ammounts from each, rather than trying to beat myself up attempting to find one or two big ones.

3) I'm focussing almost entirely on Adwords PPC advertising, and although it scares the crap out of me, I'm really studying how to make this work, but I'm really in the dark currently. At present, I'm looking at keyworks that are related to my niche on the google keywords tool, and am picking all keywords that relate well, have at least 200 + searches per month on average and have little (like the competition bar is no more than 1/4 full) or no advertising competition. My plan is to get the volume by setting up hundreds of keywords. I will then slightly alter the landing page to suit the keywords. Is this the right strategy? Or do people look for much bigger volume search terms?

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Now the two muses I am thinking of.. mainly because they are low hanging fruit.

1) Bulk Guitar Strings
I play guitar, and every now and then, break a string, and think "why oh why didn't I buy like 10 packs last time I was in the music store".
The idea is to have a one page, very simple copy - set up to adapt to bass strings, acoustic strings, electric, classical, etc, etc.. and even have different brands depending on what the search terms were... and have two simple options : Pack of 5 for $x, Pack of 20 for $y.

2) VERY niche, Driving Techniques book
I have written a short ebook, covering advanced performance driving techniques for the Subaru Impreza. I hold a world record driving this car, and I also have the lead co-driver for the Subaru World Rally Team who has written the forword for me.
The ebook is only 20 pages long though. Is this enough? If so, how much should I charge?
This could obviously be adapted for other types of cars if it proves worthwhile.

Any advice, critique or pointers very gratefully received.

[Sven]

Both very doable!

Guitar strings, go for it! (if you have done your homework;)

Driving Impreza, it could be that this is something that enthousiast would buy, could you increase the collectability and margin as a physical product?

[kamakiri]

The online guitar string market is huge actually. Going that route, you will need to develop a much stronger focus to differentiate you from the competition.

[Arjan]

Both very doable!

Guitar strings, go for it! (if you have done your homework;)

Driving Impreza, it could be that this is something that enthousiast would buy, could you increase the collectability and margin as a physical product?

I like the guitar strings too, butI agree that a twist might be needed, just volume seems quite obvious, is there another angle?

Other point: Maybe add guitar picks, customized? I know of a guy in Lochem, Holland who specializes in picks and seems to have a nice business going on (http://www.wegenpicks.com/)

Good luck!

Arjan

[kamakiri]

I though about this a bit and wanted to add some advice I haven't mentioned in a while. Never open a pizza shop in a town with no pizza shops. Always open in a town with 10 pizza shops, because you know they eat pizza there.

How does this relate to you? There are lots of strings sites out there, so there is a proven market.

On the flip side, this does not lend itself easily to a muse. Why? Tons of reasons, I will start with the big ones.

1. Strings aren't expensive enough to generate sufficient income unless you sell a lot of them. Buying them in bulk they are $3.25 a set. Even if that was 100% profit, you are looking at selling boat loads to make a decent income. Outsourcing? Not a chance. Drop shippers cost $5 a unit. Makes your price well above the competition, with no way to lower it.

2. Selection: You need a huge selection to compete here. There just isn't much innovation in the string industry that hasn't already been done. Any kind of inventory would soon become unwieldy.

There might still be something here though. "Guitar String of the month" club or something like that. Some sort of subscription based model that you can use to eliminate inventory. Sell the subscription, then just but strings in bulk accordingly. Print out mailing labels and toss the envelopes in the mail once a month. Hmmm... now that is an interesting though.

[Feenz]

Thanks a lot everyone! What a great community.

I really appreciate your input and advice.

@Sven
Thank you. One thing I thought of doing was creating a video showing me using the techniques, but I don't know a good way of testing this without going to the expense of producing the video, as you'd need to at least do some clips to show on the sales page. My gut says it would sell pretty well, but it would also make it more expensive to port to other makes of car. Any ideas?

@kamakiri
Thank you. Yes, this is my concern to be honest (the size of the existing market). Regarding the value being low, the concept was to sell in bulk (5 packs or 10 packs - but making the 10 packs much more attractive). In fairness, I'm not that excited about this muse as I think it will be a big struggle. I may put this on the back burner and try to think of something else.

@Arjan
Thank you also. Yeah, I think I'm starting to err away from the strings idea a bit, and may look at something else music related.

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In terms of the ebook. Is 20 pages too small? I have no idea how much these things go for? What the best way to appraise a rough value for it? I really don't want to rip anyone off, but I don't want to undervalue the knowledge and advice within it.

Thanks again.

[Feenz]

PS...

Another potential ebook is the story of how I bought a small forum, and over a period of years built it up to be pretty successful and very profitable, then sold it to a large internet firm for a significant figure.

(unfortunately, I didn't recognise this as a potential muse when I sold!!)

I started writing this story for fun, as a story rather than an info book, as its full of intrigue and scandal.

I guess this might have more value?

[JKohlbach]

I think both of your ebook ideas have potential. The driving technique would be the first to follow up though. Make sure you include plenty of diagrams of techniques, explanations of photographs etc. This could push your page count up. Think of the usefulness, if someone buys this, they needs something they can USE in the first couple of pages. Other than that 20 pages of content sounds ok if it's reeallly good stuff.

Go for it! Sounds like you're sitting on a gold mine my friend.

[Feenz]

JKohlbach

Thank you very much for your good advice re adding diagrams and photos, etc.

I'm still a bit stuck on the price though. Anyone got any ideas?

- eBook called 'Advanced Impreza - Driving Techniques' (hopefully the first in a series - Engine Tuning, Handling Dynamics, etc).
- Will be 20 pages of raw content (but will now beef up the pages with photos, diagrams, etc) on specific driving techniques related especially to the Subaru Impreza, and broken down in some cases to slight differences with different sub-models. A brief overview of general vehicle dynamics principals.
- Foreword by the lead co-driver for the Subaru World Rally Team.
- The author hold a current world record completed in an impreza.

Any advice on price points - even just really rough would be great.

Thanks again everyone. Once launched, I'll start a new thread to track progress.

[bmonsma]

JKohlbach

Thank you very much for your good advice re adding diagrams and photos, etc.

I'm still a bit stuck on the price though. Anyone got any ideas?

- eBook called 'Advanced Impreza - Driving Techniques' (hopefully the first in a series - Engine Tuning, Handling Dynamics, etc).
- Will be 20 pages of raw content (but will now beef up the pages with photos, diagrams, etc) on specific driving techniques related especially to the Subaru Impreza, and broken down in some cases to slight differences with different sub-models. A brief overview of general vehicle dynamics principals.
- Foreword by the lead co-driver for the Subaru World Rally Team.
- The author hold a current world record completed in an impreza.

Any advice on price points - even just really rough would be great.

Thanks again everyone. Once launched, I'll start a new thread to track progress.

Hi All,

First post on this site and I must say I love 4HWW. It's really great that Tim has this set up for readers to talk to one another, too. It's cool reading about everyone thinking and doing what I am, too. I'm working on muses but that's not why I replied to this post. So more about them somewhere else, possibly. (Likely.)

Feenz, I'd like to make a few quick suggestions since I'm ADD and don't enjoy typing long posts. Hope they help. First, I would charge around 69.99 or 79.99 for the book for several reasons. Those who drive that car likely won't mind dropping that much money, as they are enthusiasts and love to drive. Anything that feeds their habit is worth money, and knowing that, you might even be able to charge more and get away with it. I wouldn't, though. I'd say, "Valued at $129.99, on sale for 79.99." With the $$ people drop on modding, that's not that much money. And 69.99 sounds sexy. Ha.

I was in a car club back home and I guess technically still am, though I'm much older and not as into it. I'd offer a guarantee, put a disclaimer so you don't get sued in case someone crashes, and add lots of pictures, maybe of you holding a trophy/plaque whatever for setting the world record (Badass, by the way. Very nice!). Get testimonials from well-known or respected drivers, at the very least people who have won races and who have credentials, and blast your site with them. I'd even offer online access to video clips, etc. of you doing the moves as talking about shift here, turn this way, now downshift, blah blah, can get confusing. Especially because some car guys could like to have a video accompany written directions. I'd want to see it. And everyone who is into that car will enjoy watching the videos. They'd probably show friends and you'd get some viral marketing out of it, too. Set up a forum like this so people can talk about their practices. You could mention your product on car forums, too, like clubrsx.com. Or just put a link to your webpage in your signature.

Maybe to add credibility to your site, hold a one day free, or charge if you think you can, "driving school" in your city and teach the techniques. Get testimonials and film people in different colors of your car doing your techniques. Would add credibility and be fun. If you're in a club, getting people shouldn't be hard. They'd probably be meeting, anyway. Do it at different times of day, too, for cool video effects.

Try to brand yourself as a novelty, like, "Member of Feenz racing school" and create prestige around being associated with your product. But to do that, you'll have to have a really kick ass product. Or at least make people think about it like it is.

I'm not Tim Ferriss, though. He's got smarter answers. :)

Good luck!

Brandi

[bmonsma]

Shoot, mine was the longest.

[Feenz]

bmonsma

Thank you so much for your time on that reply. I've taken most of what you said onboard...

I've also started another thread as promised for comments directly on this particular muse :

http://fourhourworkweek.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=2563

Thanks guys!

[rsmudge]

Consider writing in detail your story about becoming a driver, what breaks you had, and what things you had to do to get there. I found myself asking these questions as I read your post. Maybe you could interview other drivers in other racing niches and turn this into a product for those who want to be drivers one day.

Imagine such an item as a gift for a young kid who knows he is going to be the next big driver in whatever circuit. Just a thought.

[Gongchime]

I've known lots of musicians and don't know ANY of them who buy strings in bulk. Seems to me the market is not musicians. It could be music stores but they usually already have suppliers. Fierce competition.